


Lights, Magic, Action

by sam_roulette



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (all comic panels will have image ids), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff, Foster Care, Gen, Growing Up Together, Illustrations, Inspired by Studio Ghibli, Kid Fic, Protective Siblings, Running Away, Theatre, cloth magic and other atypical magical abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_roulette/pseuds/sam_roulette
Summary: Leaving Danny was never an option. That's why Tim runs away with his little brother, seeking refuge in the mysterious Tower, an ominous hideaway sequestered in plain sight. The whispers range from witches and demons to magicians building their own worlds within its blackened walls.Theatre magic, somehow, is the most unexpected bit of it.
Relationships: Danny Stoker & Tim Stoker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: Stoker Week!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Image IDs already included <3

Tim really doesn’t know how much longer they can hold out like this.

They left the city behind years ago, it feels like. As the asphalt slowly cracked and shattered apart under the weeds, the creeping meadow came in, and it feels like this is the only thing they’ll end up finding forever after. Tim doesn’t remember what concrete looks like, which is a little worrying since a little concrete building is where he had packed their supplies before heading out that morning.

Danny walks at Tim’s heels. They couldn’t bring much, and there hadn’t been much to take in the first place. Danny’s still a little kid, and that fact is never more apparent than now how big the bag on his back is, taking up most of his body. Tim wishes he could carry it, but he’s got the supplies already, and he just knows Dany’s gonna get tired eventually. 

The Tower is still so far away that it only looks like a black blur in the distance. They still have a lot to walk. If it wasn’t for the fact that there’s nothing in town except the certainty that they’re going to be separated, Tim would have lost his nerve hours ago.

“Tim?” Danny asks.

Tim answers, “Yeah?” and when he looks back, the asphalt road- their last link to humanity for miles and miles- is gone. Swallowed up by the wildflowers. 

“I’m hungry,” Danny says and Tim winces, because they don’t have much. They’d already eaten lunch that day, and this needs to last until nightfall, at least- just in case they can’t get food right away once they’re inside the place. 

Tim turns back toward the looming column in the distance and continues walking. Says, “I know.” Danny still follows.

“... Thirsty,” Danny adds after a while. 

“Just a bit longer, okay?” Tim asks, levelly and without a note of desperation. They don’t have much water either. The flowers are starting to grow taller. “We’ll rest soon, alright? Just as soon as we find someplace.”

“‘Kay,” Danny says because he never asks for anything in the first place and Tim doesn’t usually deny him anything. It makes Tim guilty, thinking of it, but it’s better like this than not being able to talk to Danny at all. He’ll make up for it once they actually reach the Tower. No one can deny them anything once they’re inside. 

It’s a little thing, noticing how large the flowers are. At first it barely even registers in Tim’s periphery. The parks near their foster house were all uniform with little flowers on bushes that only bloomed very selective times of the year; there are no wide green stalks coming up to their chests and shoulders, dotted with old yellow petals just on the verge of teetering off. And the flowers in the parks near that old place didn’t get bigger the more that they passed, with so many reaching up toward the sky that it blotted out the shadow of the Tower in the distance. 

Danny holds onto Tim’s hand, squeezing tighter the higher the meadow climbs around them, and Tim squeezes back. Leaving Danny behind is never an option. 

“I hear they got some kind of riches up there,” Tim says, more to fill the time than to actually tell Danny anything. They’re not after riches- what’s a kid supposed to do with mountains of gold? Tim reckons it might be fun for a bit, but after a while, being rich ought to be an awful bore. It’s all boring yachts and old people who turn up their noses at everything. “Everyone up there’s got magic, and they’re so good at it that they can make anything happen- even make new worlds.”

The sky is more green than blue but the sunlight is still falling in patches around them. Danny asks, “Like planets?” because Danny read a book on planets the other week from one of the older kids. It’d supposedly been for Tim to read, but he’s been behind on that kind of thing for a bit. 

“Yeah! Like planets.” Tim says. “Jupiter and Neptune and all those such, I bet.” 

“Moons too?” 

“Lots,” 

The conversation passes like that. It takes a long while for the grass to slowly shorten, coming back down to earth without even a sign that it had ever been supernaturally tall. Tim notices belatedly that the sky is much bluer than it was before and when he looks up, suddenly, the Tower is  _ there.  _ It’s so close that they can see the individual rivulets of gleaming metal between blocks of blackened steel. 

Tim turns back and the meadow, lush with a rainbow of flowers, sways. It’s about knee-height, at most. The city has disappeared.

“...” Danny steps closer, holding on so tightly to Tim’s hand that it hurts. 

Tim smiles at Danny as though the disappearing city is just what they need. It’s not. But there’s a small part of him that’s relieved, somehow, that the choice to go back isn’t there anymore. 

He turns back and the Tower looms over their heads. So close to the enormous double doors at the entrance of the mechanical structure, the shadow of the building hides the light of day. Curving over the doors is the outline of an eye wrought in iron, flanked on all sides by rows of what look like blank television screens. The lamps that encircle both brothers rise so high that they seem to curve in towards their heads. But nothing’s lit- they’re still able to sneak by.

“So! Let’s review,” Tim says cheerfully. “First we sneak in. Then we guilt some sucker into giving us a spot, eat all their food, and steal the magic secrets! We get those and we’re totally set and here to stay!”

“...” Danny finally says, “It’s… big.”

“Yup!” Tim says, keeping his voice steady. He’s not afraid. He’s not afraid and he can’t be afraid when Danny is so much more rattled than he is. “Means there’s more room for us! I doubt anyone’s gonna notice us, so chin up, yeah? It’ll work out-”

All of the lamps switch on at once, aiming their spotlights right on Tim and Danny. There’s a deep rumble somewhere, the steady  _ click-click-click  _ of machinery slowly creaking into life. 

“Um,” Tim says. There’s nothing in the script for this situation.

The insignia of the eye pushes out and darkens. Everything settles. And Tim can’t shake the feeling that something is watching. Waiting for Tim to do… something.

Tim takes a deep breath and says, voice shaking only a little bit, “Danny. Hand me ‘that thing’.”

“I-” Danny breathes, shrinking back, “I don’t know if…” 

“It’ll work,” Tim shoots a reassuring glance over his shoulder, “Just trust me, alright?” Danny looks up at him with wide eyes and, eventually, nods. He reaches into Tim’s backpack and hands over the ‘thing’. ‘That thing’ is, of course, the plan just in case sneaking in isn’t possible. A way to trick the Tower into letting them in.

It also just so happens to be a jar half-full of dirt.

Tim pushes his little brother further behind him and squares his shoulders back, looking straight up at the giant eye. He’s trying to be bigger than he actually is but even if Tim were to grow twenty meters tall right this very moment, the Tower will still always be much taller, much darker, and full of many more secrets. 

“Hey!” Tim yells as loud as he can, “We’re going to live here now, so don’t try to stop us! We’ve got- we,” He swallows, tries to hide how he’s stumbling over his words, “We’re  _ very powerful  _ magicians! And we have our magic! Very strong magic!”

Hiding the jar under his jacket, he manages to fit a pretty good handful of its contents. He throws it, kicking up a small cloud of dust and flickering lightning bugs, buzzing gently as they fly up into the air. The light they give off slowly dissipates the further they fly away and out of sight. 

The total silence that follows is the worst Tim has known. It’s worse than the silence that adults give when they want you out of the room; worse than the silence at night when the house is empty. 

And then the eye above lights up with a glowing green iris, shimmering more toxically green than the faint glow of the lightning bugs offered to it. The eye slides over its iron surface and looks at Tim, and everything slides into place.

The Tower opens. It’s with no small amount of hissing and straining, every mechanical piece crawling into place, but it opens. 

It’s through that mist that obscures the entrance that they’ll make a home.

Tim grins, more relieved than he’s ever been as he hugs Danny. “See? Plan’s going great! W just gotta fake it ‘til we make it!”

“If- if you say so…” Danny doesn’t move. He stands, petrified, looking beyond Tim and into the fogged entrance of the tower. 

“Just stay close, alright?” Tim smiles, pulling away to offer his back. “Need me to get you in there?” Danny nods and Tim bends down. It’s not that far through the door- or at least, Tim hopes- but having Danny piggyback off him gives him something to focus on. Something that isn’t the distinct lack of nothing in front of them.

Closing his eyes, Tim steps through and

on the other side of the door, the Tower is loud and bright and full of people like he’s never seen before.

It looks like there’s a festival on the other side, full of stalls with colorful masks and props and banners shifting underneath the weight of text that changes shape every time Tim blinks. There’s a spiral walkway leading toward the center of the floor down far below full of people strolling by on anything from stilts to pointed shoes to bits of the wooden floor that carry them forward like a weirdly pixelated treadmill. Mixing among the neon banners cascading from the ceiling are nets, and the ceiling seems to go on forever, holding patchwork flocks of fake birds and a quilted whale shark swims away from the handlers trying to puppet it.

“Oh,” Tim says, at a loss for what to even say. There’s too much to look at- elevating platforms here bringing someone up to higher floors, a comically large door labeled DO NOT OPEN wedged between two stalls, the  _ birds, how are they doing that-  _ and there’s not enough time to process even a bit of it. 

“T-Tim,” Danny mutters faintly at his back, “Are we… in? Where are we?”

“Holy  _ crap.”  _ is the only thing Tim can say. “Danny. You have  _ got  _ to see this.” 

Danny slowly opens his eyes and gasps at the sight of everything. It takes everything for Tim not to drop everything he’s holding- all he can do is turn around, pumping a fist in the air excitedly while Danny sways like the unfortunate tail attached to one relieved puppy. “We made it! We got in!!”

“Let me down!! I can walk- I can walk--” Danny wiggles mightily, trying to scramble off of Tim’s back as fast as he possibly can. Tim, laughing, lets him go, barely able to even hold him back in their shared excitement. 

“Well now, let’s not get too hasty here!”

Tim stops up short. Looks around. It doesn’t look like most of the crowd has taken notice of them, passing by without a care in the world. When he looks back the entrance to the Tower has already been shut to the world again. Then, Danny’s leaning his head back, looking up toward the wooden ceiling, and Tim has to hold on tight to keep his little brother from toppling straight off of his back. Danny points up, gasping out, “Above us-” and Tim turns his head.

There’s a gentle clatter from the inside of clockwork birds. A mass of piano wire and thread held in their beaks form into a complex web under the toes of the newcomer that lowers to the ground and a woman steps off. She dusts herself off with lavender lace gloves and she’s got what could only be a witch’s hat.

“Now, what do we have here?” asks the woman with an excitable little grin, “I certainly don’t recall seeing such bright new faces! And I do remember everyone who comes to this Tower, you know,” 

Tim does not know. And he sure as hell doesn’t trust it.

\--

Of  _ course  _ Tim gets them the hell out of dodge- a lady showing up claiming to be a witch and the sole member of the welcoming committee that’s able to show them around at this very moment, in this enormous Tower? Tim might be young but he’s not as stupid as adults seem to think. 

Annabelle- they learn that’s her name, both from her own words and the spider puppets that crawl underneath her witchy hat, bearing little clockwork keys and a nametag on their abdomens- isn’t invested in keeping that close of an eye on them. When she looks away, explaining something about how puppeteering magicians are on the higher floors somewhere, Tim takes Danny’s hand and drags him between two of the stalls lining the thoroughfare. 

It’s chaotic for way too long after that. With the Tower being way more populated than Tim had ever imagined, there wasn’t a single solitary place to settle in and figure out what to do next. The second they slow down there’s always some weird stuffed elephant crawling underfoot or sweeping mass of cloth following behind someone with single-minded, serpentine focus. Tim pulls Danny toward the back of one of the side streets, someplace between a cutesy tourist shop advertising self-combusting clay and a stall that just looks like everything is made out of spools of yarn, from the merchandise to the owner. Someplace where he’s hoping to get at least some time to recover because everything is happening all at once and Tim’s still very much broke, small, and ten-years-old. You can imagine the sort of stress he’s under. 

“Okay! Got away from a witch- totally normal and expected,” Tim says, even though this all was none of those things. Then again, this is kind of what he gets for coming to the ominous magic Tower in the middle of a meadow no one ever goes into, but in his defense, Tower people never seemed as intimidating as anyone in the city had made them out to be. “Now, all we need to do is-”

Tim’s about to finish by saying a very sensible ‘look for someplace to eat' because he somehow thinks just a bag full of bread and whatever cheese he could pop from the pantry won’t be cutting it after that run and all the walking they’d done to get here besides.

What actually happens is that they need to find someplace to land because the floor underneath them shoots up into the air, wood paneling neatly leaving the floor as though it’d always meant to do that. Danny shrieks, holding onto the edge of the floating platform with a white-knuckled grip as it suddenly takes off, and Tim is left kneeling beside, trying not to freak the hell out.

It immediately flies just above the stalls and the height makes Tim want to throw up. There’s a strange array of thin threads attached to the side of the platform being propelled forward that are so thin they disappear just as Tim notices them, and he looks out, trying to find a rhyme or reason as to where they’re even going. There’s none at all. 

They sway in the air over a canopy of whatever kind of marketplace they’re leaving, suspended. Then they’re rising up into the air, being carried from the center of the strange place and towards one of the curved wooden walls partially obscured with banners proclaiming things in bold letters such as ‘LIFE, VITALITY, LOVE, and FANTASY- THE STORYTELLER’S GAMBIT’ and  _ The Staging Magician’s Premier Guild- beat those ‘men of the cloth’ right out!  _ Their platform rises a little higher and Tim can see that they aren’t alone.

Some are following the track of strings while others seem to be operating levitating platforms completely independently of them, but the people riding them all seem to be going one place- up. Tim kneels beside Danny, gently rubbing between his shoulder blades to keep himself sane as their platform takes a similar course.

“We’re going to die,” whispers Danny in a monstrously little voice, facing the floor.

Tim smiles, trying to keep up the spirits because he sure as hell didn’t bring them both here for that. “We’ll be fine- I got you, alright?”

“... Alright.” 

Things only get more bizarre the closer they get to the next floor up. There’s a rainbow of colored paint racing up the wall alongside them and, once a platform reaches toward it, a fully three-dimensional, honest-to-God human person steps out onto it. Some of the banner ribbons they pass by move unnaturally, twisting and rearing back as though to wave at them. And then the platforms start forming together. 

Tim finally manages to get Danny to stand on shaky feet when the platform rises up into something he can’t really get the shape of. There are too many people in the crowd all around them, and with the dim lighting, Tim can’t make out their faces. Danny asks, “Do… do you know where we are?”

“Uh,” Tim says, not wanting to worry Danny any more than he has to at this point, “Sure! Let me just get somewhere so we can see, and…” He keeps a hold on Danny’s hand and maneuvers them through the crowd, looking for a way to tell where they ended up. Then Tim finds a railing and makes the grim mistake of looking down.

They are  _ high up.  _ So high that it’s barely possible to see the center of the stage below.

“Oh,” Tim says faintly, “We are, uh. Really high-”

“What?!” Danny gasps, looking over with him. Then he stumbles back, looking at Tim and hopefully not seeing how the words on some of the banners hanging across from them are moving. “Tim. Where are we.”

“Somewhere we stick out- c’mon,” The lights are dimming further and the crowd is starting to thin, so Tim quickly starts walking through the small pathway, trying to find someplace to duck into. “We gotta get to cover!”

They find cover behind a giant curtain with a copper 7 emblazoned across its burgundy surface, and inside the little box, everything is blessedly quiet. Tim slowly lets out a breath and motions for Danny to sit down, starting to shrug off his backpack. If nothing else, it looks like wherever this place is has marginally more reason than whatever’s going on down below- Tim knows, generally, what a theatre is shaped like when he sees one, after all. 

They’re not alone in here, but the man sitting near the railing doesn’t seem to pay them any mind, peering over the plastic railing with a pair of opera glasses that look shiny in the low light. In the man’s other hand is a weird pen with a microphone instead of an eraser at the other end, and he taps it against one of the reams of paper.

Tim makes sure Danny has water before timidly settling in himself, looking at the man. He clears his throat and tries to say, “Hey- sorry if we’re trespassing, but…” 

The man lowers the opera glasses and looks over at them, raising a finger to his lips. He has a kind enough smile, though, when he shakes his head and gestures toward the panel of papers built into the railing on Tim’s left. The show pamphlets glow oddly, and when Tim opens it up, the words are still being written inside to the exact same rhythm of the mysterious man scratching words into an identical brochure beside him.

_ Correction: the witch is not as close as you might think. _

The man projects a strange kind of theatricality, despite his voice being so soft, into the microphone as he says, “A reminder that all alterations and corrections will be in your playbills shortly- but there appears to be a change in scenery. If you direct your attention down centerstage, the hole at its core appears to be growing deeper! There is still no sign of this afternoon’s witch, but she seems to be growing closer and ever closer…” 

Tim peeks over the railing and, just as the man’s saying and the narrator is announcing, there’s a deep, abyssal hole in the middle of the stage. There’s something weird about it- the fire that licks up the wooden sides doesn’t seem to set the stage on fire, but Tim can still feel its heat from where he’s at, all these meters up.

“Hey,” the strange man whispers, covering his microphone, “take a card.”

“Oh,” Tim says, “sorry, yeah. Okay.” He takes a step back and pages through some more of the papers before finding a little cream business card. On the front in simple letting is the name  _ Eric Delano, announcer. Primarily typography with a secondary scribe magic. _

On the back of the card reads,  _ welcoming committee.  _

And that’s the first show either Stoker ever sees.

\--

In a small clearing in the center of the lowest level of the Tower, Danny finally loses some of the tension he’s been holding pretty much from the second they’d left Tim’s new “parents” behind. 

(Not that any parents who would take Tim but not Danny would ever really be parents of Tim’s.) 

It’s nice- Eric Delano and also the magician Sarah Carpenter, who had been playing the leading role in the show, were actually really nice people. Tim had been a little apprehensive when Annabelle had come in and he realized she actually  _ was  _ a part of the welcoming committee, but they dispelled that worry pretty effectively. He’s still reeling over the idea of the woman being in children’s entertainment, considering all the puppet spiders under her hat, but the Tower really has been like a separate alien world. 

Danny’s spent the last ten minutes pulling props out of crates and setting them aside in piles. Tim’s been helping him keep the piles in some semblance of organized just because he wants to see what this stuff does. But after a bit Tim pauses, glancing to where the adults are supervising, casually resting on other black, featureless theatre boxes. 

“Why’s there an ominous hole in the floor?” asks Tim, pointing to the ominous hole in the floor.

Eric smiles, hands resting together as he explains, “It’s a portal! If you go inside, you’ll go through a door somewhere.”

“Cool!” Tim says, settling himself on the edge of the hole. Thinking that really, it won’t be that long of a dip in, he immediately steps inside.

(“Eric. Eric, that’s. One of our old elevation portals. It comes out like seven meters up beside a hook and banners.”

“I thought a platform and guardrails had been set up?”)

Tim stands on a platform in front of a now open door and gapes at Danny far below him. There are definitely no guardrails.

(“ _ Old _ elevation portal, Eric, the hell do you think remembers a portal under a heap of crates-” Pause for laughter. “Oh. Actually. I think these crates  _ were  _ the safety precautions.”

Eric blanches. “Oh,  _ shit.”) _

Tim’s pulled back out of the hole by the collar. He stares down at the wooden ground for a few seconds, not even registering Eric having pulled him through at first before he says, “Oh, SHIT.” 

Eric slowly lets out a breath. “That is hardly appropriate language for the situation, sir.” 

Danny only then notices something’s going on and looks back quizzically at Tim. Tim quickly points down at the hole and, in a decision only slightly more cautious than the first time around, sticks his head and only his head into the hole. Seven meters up, a door opens and Tim looks down at Danny, grinning. “Hey!!! Look!! I can see you all from up here!!”

“Pfft,” Danny says, looking at the lower half of Tim still on the ground, “I can see your big butt from here,”

Sarah raises a hand and one of the blue banners from above descends, wrapping around Tim like a living thing and gently pulling him the rest of the way through the portal. Tim gasps as he looks down, the breath leaving him in a second. There’s so much distance between himself and the ground, and any second he could splatter- but like this, it almost feels like he’s flying. Or might be able to learn. 

He’s lowered and for a moment floats, holding onto the blue silk at his waist. Then he whispers, “Shit.”

“That kind of language really isn’t appropriate for someone your age-” Eric tries to say.

Sarah laughs. “Guess that answers whether you’re afraid of heights, then.”

Danny, who completely misses the spectacle of his brother being lowered by cloth, pulls himself out of yet another crate and triumphantly holds up a flute, grinning wildly. “Have a look at this!!” 

“Oh, nice!! What is it??” Tim says, not really wanting to come down just yet but also not wanting to leave Danny hanging. Which is one ironic statement, considering. He wiggles a bit in the banner, trying to see if he can unravel a bit, and calls down to Sarah, “I wanna see!! Let me down please?”

“Alright, hold your horses there, little man,” Sarah laughs, depositing Tim safely on the ground. “If you’d like, I think there’s a whistle that goes along with it.” There’s the slither of red satin gently rolling out of a nearby crate. When it hits the ground, it’s with the mechanical  _ clack  _ of something small wrapped inside.

“And would you like to give that flute a try, Danny?” Eric asks. 

“Would I!” Danny says before immediately blowing as long and loud as he can into the instrument. It sounds like someone put a cat through a nightcore remix and is objectively absolutely horrible. This is exactly why Tim joins in, doing his best to harmonize even without any instrument of his own. 

Sarah winces at the sound of two children going positively insane with their instruments and Eric laughs a bit, settling back down. “Energetic, aren’t they?”

“Uh. Sure thing, boss.” Sarah says. She unwraps the whistle and is about to hold it out for Tim and pauses. There’s a rattling from one of the black boxes nearest to Danny, like multiple tiny hands scrabbling against the hollow wooden exterior. It shivers and pops under the weight and, hidden by the scream of the flutes, topples over onto its side, lid slamming open. 

The toy soldiers march out in twos, each of identical uniforms and coming in two different colors. Their mechanical footsteps jitter as they march toward the brothers messing around not too far, streaming around them in a circle. Tim slowly trails off, staring wide-eyed at the animated toys. Danny pauses in his music, and the soldiers stop the moment he does, all standing at attention for him. 

(“Well! It looks like the little brother might have some real talent.” Sarah whispers, nudging Eric with an elbow. 

“There isn’t much chance outside to show this kind of thing off…” Eric muses. “Seems a shame to let it go to waste.”)

Danny’s eyes sparkle at the toys at his and his brother’s feet and he nudges Tim, whispering, “Do you think they like it?” 

“Probably,” Tim says, not nearly so charmed by the creepy moving soldiers. But Danny seems to like them, so… “Play it again.”

Danny nods enthusiastically and does just that, slowly at first, looking over the top of the flute at Tim expectantly. Tim rolls his eyes fondly and goes back to imitating his own flute, watching the soldiers around them march back in place. Danny takes the lead and Tim follows close at his heels, leading their own little parade. Tim sees Sarah move the red cloth into a red carpet for them and takes a moment to hesitate, not sure if he’s supposed to step on it. She nods and the parade continues, with Tim getting more and more out of breath. 

Then Danny looks over his shoulder and says, “Bet you can’t keep up!” Takes off running, trying to put as much distance between himself and his older brother as possible.

Tim gasps, pretending to be affronted as the toy soldiers stream around him to continue their march. “Oh, I’ll show  _ you  _ keeping up!” He chases after, grinning wildly as Danny tries desperately not to sound like he’s giggling into the little mouth hole of his instrument. 

That’s when the actual warfare starts. 

At first, it barely registers- Tim trips over one soldier turning on its marching partner, and sees several others out the corner of his eye breaking from the line, but it doesn’t seem like a fight. Tim says, “Hey- whoa, this is sabotage!! You’re sabotaging me!!!! I thought we were brothers here-!”

“No rules in war!!!” Danny turns around and punches the air with both fists, flute held tight in one. Then one of the toy soldiers unsheathes its little needle swords and attacks an enemy soldier, and that enemy soldier accidentally stabs Danny’s ankle. 

Tim stops up short, gaping. “Oh,  _ shit-  _ are you okay?? Get away from-” 

“I’m fine!!” Danny says, stumbling back. After taking several more steps back, Danny takes a deep breath and yells, “ONE rule-! No stabbing me!!!” And then he starts again on the flute, closing his eyes to give an ever-more frenzied performance. 

Eric gestures to Sarah, calling out, “Need some help with this then, traveler?” 

Tim stares in slowly dawning discomfort at the soldiers actually begin to stab each other. It’d be one thing if the “swords” glanced off of each other, but each and every time, little spurts of red threads spilled from imaginary “wounds”. 

“... Who donated these, again?” Sarah asks.

“Oh! My wife did,” Eric smiles a bit, though it’s a tad strained. “She’s… quite inventive.”

“Is that what you call it...?”

“Uh, yeah! Please! Can I have the whistle!” Tim says. Sarah smiles and Tim jumps a bit as a shiny little ribbon slides up his arm and gifts him the whistle, complete with a bow. Tim loudly blows into the whistle and a single soldier stops and sits down. Encouraged, Tim keeps blowing in short bursts, trying to grab as many soldiers as he can. 

(“... Shame about the older brother, huh.” Sarah whispers. “That’s barely anything.” 

“It’s enough to work with- more can be taught,” Eric says.

Sarah lets out a little breath, smiling sardonically. “Maybe. But never to the level of the little brother.”

“No. Likely not.”)

“I think it’s time for a scene change,” Sarah announces. Raising a hand, opaque fabrics in all sorts of shades of blue, grey, and white twirl around her. They roll over the makeshift battlefield, hiding the carnage in shifting waves of cloth. The whistle blows and sheer grey fabric drifts in a two-meter high wall between the brothers, shielding Danny from view as his flute goes silent. Sarah hums under her breath. “Can be taught indeed.” 

There’s a moment where Tim looks over his handiwork, excited to be able to have even that momentary control over the cloth. Then, he drops the whistle in his pocket, searching the fabric. “Danny? You okay there?” He looks down and the soldiers have disappeared- what a relief. “There’s, uh, no bloody carnage ‘round here! Not that you’d ever see that! Haha…”

Silence.

“... Danny?”

Tim plunges himself into the “mist”, knocking several suspended veils out of his way as he searches for his brother. 

(“But if he cared about that sort of thing, he would’ve left his brother behind, don’t you think?”)

“Danny?!” Tim calls, getting slowly more frantic. “Danny, come on, say something- nothing really happened. It- you’re fine right? Did any of the soldiers go to you?!”

Tim finds Danny pretty quickly. Mostly because Danny pops out, wearing a hideous blue ogre mask, rumbling with an electronically modulated “BOO!”

Tim screams and falls back on his bum, falling in time with the fabric mist. He scrabbles to pull heaps of sheer cloth off of his face as Danny laughs, doubling over and holding his stomach as he crows, “Scared you! Scared you, scared you!” 

“Shit!” Tim says, relieved. “Just- shit, man, that… shit.”

“SHIT!” Danny repeats, delighted. 

Eric buries his face in his hands, looking for all the world like the very picture of shame. Sarah bites her lip to keep herself from laughing too hard as she leans in, grinning as widely as anything. “Energetic, aren’t they?”

\--

Tim’s seventeen when he finally ends up acting in one of the shows. 

There’s maybe a little more lace in this fabric train of a boa than what the costume specifications  _ strictly  _ call for, but that’s probably fine, right? It definitely looks fine to him when he smooths it out over the workshop floor, midnight blue fabric stretched through with carefully embroidered layers of cream lace. The underside’s not embroidered the same way, mostly because he didn’t have time to do that, but it’d be uncomfortable having that against his arms anyway. 

“Looks good,” Danny says, hanging upside down from one of the rafters where Tim’s fabric storage is supposed to go. Tim should probably get him down from there, but he just knows Danny’s not gonna budge if he tries. Trying to move Danny is like trying to poke a pit viper nowadays.

“I know, right?” Tim picks up the boa and slings it around himself. It’s a bit unusual for what it is, made up of four trailing parts instead of two, but it’s still one damn pretty piece if he does say so himself! 

Two of the boa’s “arms” rest over Tim’s elbows while the remaining two trail behind and he looks in the mirror, trying to ignore the fucking mannequin that stares back from behind him. Danny snickers up above and says, “You know you’re going to have to move all that, right?”

Tim stares at the mirror, at the intricately woven fabric train that he has on, and says, “... Shit.” 

It’s not like he can’t move them per se. Can’t exactly be any cloth magician of any caliber without being able to move a sash or twenty- it’s just that moving all four of the parts of the boa simultaneously isn’t exactly in Tim’s wheelhouse. And then he’s got the rest of the costume too… 

“Yep. Shit,” Danny says, hopping down from his perch with barely a second thought and landing in a crouch. Tim’s wondering what the fuck they have in the food around here. Lord knows he wasn’t nearly that athletic when he was Danny’s age! Of course, it wasn’t like Tim had much room to say anything about athleticism since he’d been falling off even the most animated of aerial silks until not too long ago, but… Danny strolled up beside him, tilting his head in the mirror. “So? What’re you gonna do about it?”

“Just what I can, I guess?” Tim says as though ‘what he can’ isn’t like a handful of things and nothing else whatsoever. But, dammit, he can at least try. Crossing his arms over his chest, he tried to use his magic to animate the sash, watching the flow of each “limb” in the mirror and achieving less “homme fatale” and more “wacky inflatable tube men in a car dealership parking lot”. 

“Wow!” said Danny, with the brutal honesty all tweens possess, “You’re really giving off that unsexy 40-something divorcee vibe.” 

“Fuckin’... Unsexy and I know it,” Tim said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He knows Danny’s right. Which isn’t doing wonders for his confidence in his role. Then again, it’s not even Tim’s fault at this point; who puts up a seventeen-year-old for a play with a fucking “Fatale seducing a detective” role? Even if the “detective” in this case is around Tim’s age, it’s still weird. 

“This is gonna take some work,” Tim groans, frowning. “I’m supposed to… just like,” One of the arms of the sash reaches up. It’s supposed to slap the shit out of Tim- instead, it lightly caresses his cheek, leaving a weird tickle behind.

Danny asks, “... you’re supposed to make it look like something’s eating your face?”

“ _ No,  _ I’m not supposed to make it look like- well.” Tim reconsiders, “That might solve the ‘seduction’ part? Just doing this instead of slapping the shit out of Jon like I’m supposed to.”

“That’s supposed to be a  _ slap?”  _ Danny chortles, covering his mouth. Little bastard is only up to Tim’s shoulder and he still has the audacity to look this smug… 

“Look,” Tim says, definitely not pouting because he’s basically an adult already and Danny is still very much a child, “it’s hard when you’re supposed to make an impact with stuff this soft.”

“Is it though?” Danny says skeptically. 

Glancing off to the side at the scrap pile that’s more or less becoming a tiny Mound of miscellaneous textiles at this point, Danny holds up a hand. Out from the pile snakes a long, uneven cotton sash, wrapping around Danny’s wrist with the familiarity of an old friend. Tim walks with Danny as he marches over to the creepy mannequin he insists Tim keeps, rears the cloth back, and strikes.

The cotton smacks against the wood with an audible  _ twap  _ and the thing’s head is spinning with the momentum, wooden body shivering under the force. Tim knows at that moment that he should’ve just stayed with the embroidery. 

“... Touche,” Tim says because you know. Danny has made some points. After a few seconds of thought, Tim adds, “Jon could probably do that.”

“Do what?” Danny looks at Tim quizzically.

Tim grins a bit, “Turn his head like that. Like a demented fuckin’ owl.”

“Damn, really?” Danny grins back, “That’s  _ gnarly.”  _

“... Still,” Tim continues, “don’t think the producers are really looking for a full cartoon kinda… or like, they probably are, considering the casting choices, but you know.” 

He steps up to the mannequin and tries to rear back the third fabric extremity he’s using for slapping. And misses the mannequin. And smacks himself in the fucking side. Biting his lip as he slowly doubles over he assures Danny that he totally meant to do that. 

“Just like you meant to make a costume that makes you have to move four parts? Independently?” Danny says, unimpressed, “When you can’t control more than one?” 

“It was!!” Something more akin to momentary possession, but Tim can’t really say that without it sounding weird. Ghosts abound in the Tower and all that other spooky shit. “Just. Artistic fervour.”

“You were embroidering roses on the same bodice lining. For five days. Consecutively.” Somehow, Danny makes this sound like an accusation. 

Tim mutters, “I’m gonna smack around the producers of the show for five days, consecutively.” because honestly. Were they expecting him  _ not  _ to want to make this costume look good? They could’ve at least given him some parameters so that he didn’t go and sew himself into a corner! And also not put him in the role of seducer! Or better yet, just not cast him at all. Tim’s never been cut out for all the politicking that goes into debuting...

“Not with this you aren’t!” Danny drags over a wooden chair and stands behind Tim, still smiling as he takes control of the lower two fabric limbs, “Which means I’m just going to have to help you, huh?”

“You could sound a little less smug about it,”

“But I won’t!” 

Tim tries to lightly smack Danny in the arm with one of the fabric limbs but all it does is gently pet him. “Hush, ye tiny bastard. Now…” Tim looks at the creepy, faceless thing in front of him and tries matching Danny’s stance, raising the fingers on his right hand. One of the parts of the boa rears back while the other gently twines around the fingers of his left hand and, when he gestures toward the mannequin, the fabric follows. There’s a very dull sound and the thing wobbles slightly- and finally, there’s  _ impact. _

“Hey, there we are!” Danny says brightly, “That one wasn’t half bad!”

Tim smiles in turn, “Oh hell yes!”

“Try getting a little more oomph this time and I think we’re golden.”

“You got it, boss!” 

Or at least he would have, if not for the fact that this time when Tim slapped the mannequin, its head flies off.

Tim freezes, head snapping to the window where the mannequin head jettisoned out into the street. There’s a chorus of hissing several cats strong and a pre-recorded screen sounding off from somewhere. Danny’s at his back, covering his mouth with the edges of Tim’s sash and with his arms held around his middle. Someone outside yelps, “Good Lord,  _ what-” _

Just before Tim can formulate a response, of all the people to have been out on the street at this time of day, when Tim’s just tossed a disembodied wooden head out a window, it’s Jon there. And it’s Jon who sticks his head in the window, furious as he says, “WATCH IT. There are other people in this district too,  _ Tim.”  _

The mannequin head is deposited back inside and Jon storms away. Tim stares at the mannequin head, thinking that perhaps he should just crawl into a hole and die maybe. 

“Yeah Tim,” Danny crows, shaking with laughter, “Watch it- next time, you might smack  _ Jon’s  _ head off!!”

“Man, fuck off,” Tim says and thinks that, in fact, he should never be allowed near a stage ever again.

\-- 

Danny’s only sixteen when he gets cast for the first time. Unlike Tim, who had the opportunity that most cloth magicians get as a supporting role, Danny somehow gets cast as the leading man of the entire show. He’s the one expected to carry it all and just charm the entirety of the audience. No pressure or anything.

It’s just got to be perfect.

Tim’s sliding the last of the straps into the back of Danny’s bodice under the cape while Danny’s looking in the mirror, trying to amp himself up. He’s only been practicing this for months and his official debut isn’t for another few weeks yet- but this is going to be the first dress rehearsal, and with the tech crews preparing for the trenches of tech month, that just leaves the other actors and producers to judge the show. 

There’s a lot more politics that goes into it when you’re debuting the leading role. It’s a strangely high-status thing, after all, being given to some teenager. If Danny fucks up here even a little, that’s a strike against him for sponsorship and mentoring- and god forbid he actually misses a beat during the main show. It’s not impossible to come back from, but he’ll be known for years as the kid who flubbed a star-studded opportunity. He hasn’t got a backup plan like Tim. 

“So!” Tim says, carefree, “What do you think?”

“It’s looking pretty good,” Danny says, turning around to look at his back through the mirror. Tim always seems to know exactly what he’s doing. “Well- it’s looking  _ damn good,  _ actually. How’d you even find the time to do all this?” 

It’s not a lie to say that the costume itself is pretty extravagant. Fur on the ruff, iridescent colors, highly detailed embroidery kind of extravagant. The kind of extravagant you see in specialty shops during festivals that cost thousands to even step inside of, extravagant. It’s an insane level of detail to put into a costume, even if it’s the debut piece- it almost feels like Danny’s cheating somehow, wearing this when most debut costumes aren’t even near this level.

“Like I’m not gonna make time for my brother’s big show? My own little brother?” Tim snorts, grinning playfully, “You don’t really think I’m some half-arsed ametuer, right?”

“I don’t! I really don’t,” Danny says, pushing some of his hair out of his eyes, “But hey, that’s why I asked you, you know? It’s hard, making a costume look just as good as me,” It’s so much easier to wink at himself in the mirror and default to fake narcissism than to acknowledge literally anything, so that’s what Danny does. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Tim rolls his eyes,  _ “But  _ since you’ve got some pretty wild skills with a bunch of moving parts, I added a few little touches. The embroidery on the cape should let you move it like wings- think you’d be up for that?”

Twisting around a bit so he can get a glimpse of the cape over his shoulder, Danny flexes his fingers, bringing it up close. It’s embroidered on the surface of the cape in copper thread- seemingly endless amounts of feathers, rendered with impressive detail and completely anatomically correct. “Oh  _ wow-  _ that is. A lot of feathers.”

“Yep!” Tim says, fussing a bit more with the placement of the thread, “Just release the rest of the fabric, and…” 

Danny follows the direction and pulls the cape away from the embroidery with a snap of his fingers. The cape does what it’s meant to do, slithering into the back of his costume and settling seamlessly. The embroidery, even without a solid base, stays just where it is, suspended in the air and hovering just above his back. Tim says, “Here, try making them flap,”

He does so, experimentally. He flexes his shoulder blades and fingers and the wings twitch to life and move with the motion, smoothly spreading. Danny whistles lowly, saying, “Now  _ that  _ is some showmanship,” as he tries to flap them harder, feeling the brush of fluffed up fake feathers brush his back. One of the feathers even falls out, drifting to the ground like the real thing!

“Whoa, careful there! Let’s not lose any before the actual show,” Tim says, bending down to retrieve the feather and slide it back into the rest of the wings. The cape reappears and Tim smooths the embroidery back down, shoving three-dimensional feathers back into the two-dimensional tapestry that they came from with a swipe of his hand. “If you need, there’s a mechanism where they can all release at once- in case you need a dramatic Icarus style fall, it’ll all just melt off, and then!! You can also use the same kind of embroidery releasing deal to change the colors of the costume, and-”

“The- hey, hold on now,” Danny turns to face his brother, knocking the feathers loose in the process, “When was this?! You made different colored  _ versions??”  _ Sometimes Danny has to wonder if his brother is even human, with the frankly deranged amount of work he puts into this all. 

“Yeah!! Your masks are still the main signifier of character change,” Tim says as though that’s the thing Danny’s worried about here, “but there’s this now, too,” 

Tim reaches over and takes Danny’s gloved hand, pressing a point near the palm. The warm orange of the costume slowly dissolves into blue, as though the entire thing is being redyed in real time. “It’s kind of the same principle with cuttlefish,” Tim’s saying, “They have these different chromatophores to stretch and squeeze that helps them change color- so, I added three different kinds of threads? In parallel with each other, in the sheets of fabric, and then if you just kinda massage out the thread it  _ kinda  _ looks like the colors are bleeding into the forefront! Everyone keeps looking to animals for their inspiration, and, y’know…” 

As Tim trails off, Danny takes a moment to try and process any of that infodump whatsoever. He says, “Well! I didn’t really understand that but!! This is honestly amazing??? Whatever you did, it  _ really  _ works, oh man- it- does anyone else? Know?”

“Nope! Just made it all like, last week. I had time so it wasn’t really a big deal.” Tim says, as though just inventing new costuming magic is something anyone would do for funsies. This does not help Danny’s hunch that his older brother’s got some kind of supernatural drive to him.

“Not a big deal, he says,” Danny mutters, affronted on his brother’s behalf because come  _ on  _ now. “You really have no idea how amazing this all is? Like how much more work you’ve already done for this costume than literally, any debut costume deserves? Man,”

“Aw, shucks,” Tim says and then glosses right on over that, “but!!! Don’t go thanking me yet!! You need to use it in the actual show first! And, hey, if nothing else you’ve also got extra ribbons tucked in there, so you can go full L’Oreal and tear up the hair ribbon or… you know, whatever you need.”

“And uh- that’s not gonna? Interfere with the hairpin, is it?” Danny says, subconsciously touching it. He can’t really help it- he kind of needs it, since it’s kind of his emergency repair-kit and all. 

“Not at all!” Tim assures, “Hell, the ribbons would probably help put it back. Wiggle ‘em around- give it a try.”

“Alright,” Danny lightly touches his collar and a few slithery, soft shapes slowly worm their way out. In the mirror, three blue ribbons poke out, almost as moving almost as though they’re peeking. It’s so fucking cute that Danny might actually combust, here and now.

“Eugh,” Tim utters, looking disconcerted. “Don’t know how I feel about that.”

“What? But they’re so cute!” Danny gasps, cupping a hand over the one rubbing up closest to his chin, “They’re like little garden snakes…”

“Don’t know if many people would call that ‘cute’,” Tim smiles, shaking his head, “Especially not any general audience I know of- God, just imagine swarms of them just… writhing around you.” He shudders, “Gives me the willies.”

Danny’s about to make a smartass remark when he pauses. Looks a bit closer in the mirror. His three little personal “snakes” wiggle back underneath his collar, as though shy, and he can’t help but find the image kind of striking. “... Hm. I might actually like to see that myself, someday.”

“...? Yeah?” Tim asks, bewildered.

“Yeah,” says Danny and doesn’t elaborate. That would be a story for another time.

  
  


\--

A ring of seven blindingly white lights from above focus on the empty center of the stage. Ten meters above the heads of the audience loom the extended platforms of the viewing boxes. The star performer is due to make his entrance any moment now, and he’s currently perched on the railing of Box 7, glancing for the millionth time over the audience. And beside the star of the show and the man of the hour stands plain old Tim, still wearing a plain shop apron. 

It’s far from Danny’s first show at this point, and both of them are far from the kids they’d been when they entered the tower sixteen years ago.

“D’ya reckon Sasha’s found her way in yet?” Danny asks, shielding his eyes with a gloved hand as he peers down at the ground floor. The crowd’s shifting on all sides of the circular stage, murmuring in anticipation for the show that’s supposed to start. It’s a show they are probably going to have to wait for because, like, Gods, there are a lot of people down there.

“I think she’s still kinda sulking ‘cause you chased her out of the wings,” Tim says, grinning despite himself. 

Danny glances over at Tim, cape shifting and falling over the back of the railing to the floor in Box 7 in a small pool of blue satin as he asks, “Really? It’s not that bad waiting, is it…?” 

“For your work? I’d say so!” Tim says as he looked appreciatingly the cape, “Just look at this- they’re gonna love it, and they don’t even know it’s all coming,” And, well, Tim also doesn’t really know what’s going on, since the plan of having Sasha have a look at Danny’s plans and report back to him was shot. All Tim knows is that it looks like Danny’s got some pre-show jitters- a bit weird, considering that everyone loves Danny and his work.

“...” Danny still doesn’t say anything. Tim looks at Danny, who frowns into the mask currently pulled down to hang around his neck as though contemplating something. Guess these are some major jitters after all...

“Hey, don’t worry about it- you’ve got this whole ‘element of surprise’ thing going on!” Tim tries, smiling reassuringly as he leans his arms on the railing. “Everyone loves a surprise.”

“I mean, yeah, that’s the hope,” Danny says, hooking his knees over the railing so he could tip backward and hang, pouting up at the wooden ceiling, “But you never know- it’s… a risk, doing things in metaphor.”

“Doing things in metaphor, huh?” He turns to see Danny dramatically draping himself. It seems sillier than normal with the whole Prince aesthetic of the costume, but that’s the sheer beauty of the moment- all the bits that the audience will never get to see. Bits such as the Magician Daniel doubled over backward and groaning like he’s a little kid again. It’s probably a little overexaggerated, but hey, they’re all theatre people in this Tower. Comes with the territory. 

Leaning his elbows against the cold metal and settling in, Tim adds lightheartedly, “And hey, that just means Sasha isn’t gonna be getting anything at first blush! She won’t even know what hit her,”

“Mmmmmmmm,” Danny sags a bit more, “did I say this was payback for the corridor trick…? Because that might have been a tiny, bitty little lie.”

Tim gasps, holding a hand to his chest at the sheer betrayal of the moment, “I can’t  _ believe  _ it- my own little brother! Blood of my blood! Apple of my branch!  _ Lying  _ to your own flesh and blood. In cahoots with the trickster, I see-”

“Hey, I never said that either-” Danny tries to cut in but Tim’s really getting into this now.

“Paired off with the fiend! Taking my own partner away…” Tim wipes away a mock tear, “Truly, this is the worst day of my life,”

Danny slowly sits back up, raising an eyebrow at Tim. “Got it all out your system, then?”

“I’ll never be happy again! But yeah, I’m good,” Tim grins, and it’s with no mischief in the slightest as he says, “Besides, it’s all in the name of the show, right? You’ll knock everyone right out their seats- and hey, if you ever wanna fling Sasha maybe a bit farther this time, as a favor for your dear sweet brother who loves you so very much-”

“No can do,” Danny says with a secret little smile as he finally sits upright, “I’m not exactly in the mood for tricks, sorry. I’ve got a few… plans.”

“Plans, hm? Ominous,” Tim says as he turns back to look over the audience.

Danny rights himself on the railing. “Meaning, I think- it’s about that time of night.” 

“Must be,” Tim smiles, a bit softer this time. When he thumps Danny on the back, there isn’t the static shock that happens when they bump into each other sometimes, full of fabric as they always are. Must be a sign of good luck. “Knock ‘em dead, kid,” 

Danny smiles back at him in turn and stands up. He takes a deep breath and hides the mask for now. No matter how much he moans and complains and puts on a show of being worried for his brother, there’s no hesitation as Danny falls forward and plummets toward the stage below. Tim wouldn’t have expected anything less; Danny’s gifted in everything performance, and tonight he’s going to command attention the same as any other night. 

Ten meters is no small height when Danny jumps without a harness or safety net below.

Danny deafens the audience with the simple act of falling headfirst toward the ground, drenching the room in silence. A blue shape, not yet distinguishable as a man, falls to the earth.

Tim watches with his stomach dipping low as though this is the first time, and as though he doesn’t already see the aerial silk banner descending once Danny reaches the five-meter mark. The magic isn’t lessened, of course- there’s still a terrible thrill and a horrible worry, that at any moment something will give and the banner won’t be quick enough. That there is no magic in the world after all, and Danny’s just given himself over to fate.

Just two meters above the ground, Danny reaches up and out. Violet silk wraps itself around his wrist and forearm in a tight bandage. Gripping the silk in his hand, Danny turns a backward somersault and touches a single tip of his shoe to the floor.

The silk holds and Danny is yanked back up into the air, soaring out and above. The crowd comes to life with a cheer as the announcer crows from his box, hidden away in the upper levels of the upper stage 

_ “Now arriving for another storied night-” _

[ID: At the center of the image is the Magician Danny Stoker, a Cantonese man with pale skin and long, black hair tied back with a gold hairpin. The hairpin is on both sides of the title poster, showing it to end off in a design where a circular, light blue jewel is framed by three bare wire-gold “petals”. Danny is wearing an outfit lightly reminiscent of Chinese magic drama, with azure boots, dark blue leggings, a lighter blue bodice top with sleeves that stop at the elbow, and gloves in a blue that matches the boots. There is a lot of lace-work in the bodice and sleeves with white accents and powder blue ribbons, and everything from the pants to the middle of the bodice is embroidered with powder blue/white. Completing the look is a long cape of blue satin, embroidered with swirling patterns.

Danny rides into the frame, flying by holding onto a banner of royal blue aerial silk. The banner is wrapped around his wrist as he holds on with his right hand. In his left, he holds a thin rapier, tinted light blue and with an intricate pommel. Bordering the entire poster are gold accents that give rise to the minimalist impressions of golden snakes, one of which rests underneath white text that reads, “THE MAGICIAN DANIEL!” in large font. 

Circling Danny’s head are three masks.

The green one on the left is with an open, anguished expression and open mouth. This is the Crier.

The orange-gold one on the right, with a determined, cunning expression. It has black lines falling like tears and a gold design near its forehead of gears. This is the Inventor.

The blue one in the center, just above Danny’s head. It’s face is noble and mouth closed in a delicate, self-assured smile; a blue flower is emblazoned near the forehead. This is the Hero.

In the far background, top half leaning over the railing of Box 7, is Tim, wearing a plain costume-shop apron and a wide, excitable smile, looking at Danny. This is for him.

End ID]

[ID: Two panels along the top. In the left panel, a top-half, limited color-palette view of Danny, outlined in blue that matches the Hero mask. His eyes peek over to the right and the Hero mask covers the bottom half of his face as he brings it up, hiding his full expression. In the right panel, Danny turns his head to glance left, now wearing the Hero mask and gesturing with his right hand toward the left as his cape fans out, making it look as though he’s fanned by accents of movement.

The majority of the page takes up a single long panel of what appear to be five Dannys; the rightmost is the farthest away, and with each consecutive one, he comes closer to the viewer, preparing to land on stage. Each Danny’s costume is turning a little more green, and the curve of Danny’s movement is mapped by the image of the various positions of the sword in his right hand. The fourth Danny is just about to land and abstract lines that look like wings hang in the air around his shoulders. The fifth Danny- the current Danny, who isn’t a mere after-image of movement- has a costume that has mostly turned green as the Hero mask slowly dissolves into that of the Crier, indicating that the Hero has come at the moment of a yet unknown danger. 

From the tip of the current Danny’s sword, green magic diffuses out into the next comic page itself. End ID]

[ID: The lines between comic panels themselves begin to fall, taking the form of thick, ribbony cloth in the shape of black snakes sewn with bright green bellies. They all fall into an attack against the Crier, who stands on the right side in profile with a ribbon spelling out “LISTEN” in cursive within the white space, as well as a small exclamation mark. The Crier’s cape cascades down and provides a background to the bottom of the panel, where the Crier is turned, his back to the camera, and partially sprawled on the ground, one arm held in front of him as though to protect him. Ten snakes slowly advance along with the oil-slick iridescence of the stage floor as the Crier stumbles back. 

In the second to last panel, the Crier tries to throw himself backward closer to the camera, hand thrown out in front of him in a stop motion in a desperate move to stave off the snakes. The snakes loom and stream around him, drinking in his fear, and in the final panel, they all strike simultaneously, beginning to wrap around him in a writhing second skin of cloth.

End ID]

  


[GIF ID: A perspective shot initially focusing on the vortex of snakes on the ground as it swallows the Crier whole. The camera pans up and out as the twister of writhing fabric serpents grow higher and higher, reaching new heights as the various audience boxes ringing around the stage can be seen in the background. The Crier initially emerges from the vortex of snakes, cape missing, and face unseeable, before the mask changes to that of the Hero before the audience’s eyes. The entire costume changes from green to blue and the cape reappears as the Hero takes a small bow. 

The camera jolts at this revelation since it implies that the Hero has managed to get all civilians out of harm’s way in the time before the audience could catch the change from Crier to Hero. End ID]

[ID: Two panels along the top, cut on a diagonal axis. In the left, the Hero holds onto a banner of green cloth that is tied around his waist, looking down at a large, photorealistic, unopened reddish-purple flower bud which the sword spears the heart of. In the right panel, the Hero has wrapped the banner partially around his thigh and still holds on with one hand as he looks up and right to where he now holds the sword and slowly opening bud.

In the second to last panel and the main body of the page, the flower opens up into a photorealistic morning glory, the petals underneath facing the umbrella. By spearing the sword through in this way, Danny uses it as a makeshift umbrella, allowing the banner to drop him toward the ground. This is a perspective shot where the viewer looks up at Danny floating down from the ground, as though we were one of the snakes, many of which are winding further and further toward the Hero in an attempt to strike.

In the last panel, the Hero lands back on the ground, facing away from the viewer as he closes the enormous flower in hand. He looks to the left, where an enormous snake- possibly the largest out of all of them- is closing in, needle-like fangs bared. Spilling out from the sides of this panel and onto ao3 itself are more morning glories. End ID]

[ID: Four panels in total. In the topmost and largest of them is a perspective shot of Danny, looking down from the position of one of the snakes rising high to strike. The Hero stands and looks up and to the upper right of the panel, dwarfed by the snake he stands on the back of as the largest snake opens its mouth wide in a threat to strike him down.

In the second panel, the Hero begins to run along the snake’s back, looking directly at the viewer, sword outstretched in his left hand.

In the third panel, he’s close enough that only his top half is shown. 

In the fourth panel, he’s close enough that only see the Hero’s determined face and the cape that fans out behind him. End ID]

[ID: In the topmost panel, a perspective shot of the Hero’s back as he leaps forward and beheads the largest of the snakes, hair flowing with the motion. The tip of his sword glows an eerie green, lighter than the green of the snakes’ open jaws in their final moments as shreds of tattered ribbons flutter up and out. 

In the middle are a set of three panels. On the left, the top half of the Hero’s body, facing the viewer and looking up toward the snake seen off-screen. On the right, the dying monster, opening its jaws wide as its stitched yellow eyes gleam. A rain of sewing needles falls from its unhinged jaws. In the middle, in a panel cut in two, the eye of the Hero, framed by hair, above the eye of the serpent, glowing yellow. 

In the second to last panel is a partial view of the Hero raising an arm to try and defend himself from the onslaught of needles. In the left part of the last panel is a far-off perspective shot of the Hero’s back, shadowy against the rising walls of ominously glowing rainbow colors that surround him. In the right side, it’s shown that the Hero’s mask has shattered, leaving one of Danny’s eyes visible beneath. End ID]

[ID: In the topmost panel is a top half view of Danny. He rests his right hand over the damaged portion of the mask to press the orange Inventor’s mask in its place and uses his left to take the enchanted hairpin from his hair. The shattered blue pieces of the broken portion of the mask orbit Danny’s head, stark against the rainbow background, and from the mask outward, the color of Danny’s mask and costume changes from blue to a warm coral orange. 

In the second panel, a blue gloved hand taps against the mask, slowly turning orange. The crumbled pieces of the mask reform back into their original shape and the mask is fixed.

In the bottom left panel, the Inventor holds out the hairpin as the orange color spreads to his cape, revealing bright copper wings intricately embroidered on the underside. His hair is completely down, flowing over his shoulders. In the bottom right panel, the embroidered wings fluff up and out into three-dimensional space, looking like wings slowly beginning to open up around his shoulders as he crosses his left arm over his chest and on his hip, looking down to the bottom left. End ID]

[ID: The topmost panel is a limited palette version of the top half of the Inventor, facing the audience and looking slightly to the right. He spreads his arms out as the cape disappears from the costume entirely- but not the wings, which appear to, by some kind of stage magic, be real. 

In the final image is Danny as the Inventor, rising with a blue silk aerial sash in his left hand. He holds his right arm slightly out as the embroidery feathers spread out around him with a full wingspan that is about at long as his own body. The palette of the scenery has been dyed in a warm orange glow and the dark brown text reads, “Thanks” in soft cursive over blue ribbons that line and slowly rise from the stage. 

Underneath the text and close to the camera is the silhouette of one final snake, visible eye closed.

End.]

\--

So the show’s over. Danny doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to catch his breath again.

That’s a lie, of course- he thinks that after every show, and every time, he’s usually fine afterward. But this time it really feels like it might be the truth because he knows Tim’s watching this one and he knows he’s just spent like an hour being stupidly sentimental and kind of childish. Like, snakes? Just himself and “snakes”? What was Danny thinking, honestly.

Still, the fact that people keep pressing all these bouquets into his hands means that he must have done something right. 

Tim’s backstage. Danny knows this because Tim is rarely not backstage, and also because he’s got to face this sooner rather than later, and he doesn’t want to seem too much like he’s kind of putting a lot of stake into Tim’s reaction to this. So he steps backstage as though he hasn’t just indirectly poured his heart out and, with all the flowers gathered in the crook of his arm, asks, “So, how’d I do?” 

“How’d you do?” Tim asks, measured, “Are you kidding me right now? You can’t say that you don’t already know,”

Danny’s already preparing to step back through the curtain and pretend that tonight never happened as he says, “Uh, care to enlighten me as to what I know?”

“That you knocked it out of the park?” Tim grins then, something blindingly bright that makes Danny wonder why Tim’s so adamant that he can never make it on stage. The guy could light up a room like that. “I mean, what can I even say?? The choreography was perfect and your sword fighting was clean as hell- the way that you managed to keep control of every single snake simultaneously was seriously  _ amazing-  _ Christ, you just had to use a nightmare scenario, huh? It worked!!! So well!! But all those snakes… chilling.”

“Cool, cool cool,” Danny says, stepping into the room more fully. Definitely a good response, then. “Thanks- it, uh. None of it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for you, y’know.”

“Me?” Tim tilts his head, as though he isn’t just one of the people Danny looks up to most in the entire goddamn world, “Come on, now- all I ever did was give you the parts. I wouldn’t dream of giving that costume to anyone else… and you’re the one who kept it all on track! It was all you up there, and you did  _ amazingly-  _ rest of the Tower thinks so too.” 

“Yeah- yeah, that’s true,” Seriously, how does someone keep turning compliments back around like that? At this point, Danny’s getting the feeling that Tim’s deflecting way too hard. “But still- I really couldn’t have done anything without you there, so… thank you.”

Tim blinks for a moment and, faster than Danny could really process, hugs him. Danny huffs out a little breath, leaning down so that Tim doesn’t have to reach up so much. The flowers are crushed between them, but Danny doesn’t really mind so much- flowers rarely last in the Tower anyway. 

Danny worries about him- possibly a bit more than what’s strictly necessary, but… Really, it should have been obvious what Danny thinks of Tim, by now. Danny says, “I really mean it.”

“I know you do,” Tim says, squeezing for a moment, “I’m proud of you."

“I know,” Danny says, smiling.

Tim pulls away a bit and, grinning, pats his shoulder, “And, thanks accepted- now! You don’t get to deflect compliments anymore.” One of Danny’s own ribbons lightly hits him in the face, “It’s your day- meaning we’re gonna hop over to Sasha’s  _ right  _ this second for a drink and a celebration! I think I’ve still got the Mound set up…” 

“Fine, okay, sure thing,” Danny says, letting the moment pass as he pulls the ribbon back into place. Barely five minutes off stage and Tim’s already basically got control of his costume again… Maybe Danny can get Tim to reconsider his stance on acting some time, considering how dramatic he is with these things. “Lead the way.”


	2. End Comic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The comic strips toward the end of the last chapter, arranged in consecutive. Image IDs are at the bottom.

Page 1: 

  


[ID: At the center of the image is the Magician Danny Stoker, a Catonese man with pale skin and long, black hair tied back with a gold hairpin. The hairpin is on both sides of the title poster, showing it to end off in a design where a circular, light blue jewel is framed by three bare wire-gold “petals”. Danny is wearing an outfit lightly reminiscent of Chinese magic drama, with azure boots, dark blue leggings, a lighter blue bodice top with sleeves that stop at the elbow, and gloves in a blue that matches the boots. There is a lot of lace-work in the bodice and sleeves with white accents and powder blue ribbons, and everything from the pants to the middle of the bodice is embroidered with powder blue/white. Completing the look is a long cape of blue satin, embroidered with swirling patterns.

  


Danny rides into frame, flying by holding onto a banner of royal blue aerial silk. The banner is wrapped around his wrist as he holds on with his right hand. In his left, he holds a thin rapier, tinted light blue and with an intricate pommel. Bordering the entire poster are gold accents which give rise to the minimalist impressions of golden snakes, one of which rests underneath white text that reads, “THE MAGICAN DANIEL!” in large font. 

  


Circling Danny’s head are three masks.

  


The green one on the left is with an open, anguished expression and open mouth. This is the Crier.

  


The orange-gold one on the right, with a determined, cunning expression. It has black lines falling like tears and a gold design near its forehead of gears. This is the Inventor.

  


The blue one in the center, just above Danny’s head. It’s face is noble and mouth closed in a delicate, self-assured smile; a blue flower is emblazoned near the forehead. This is the Hero.

  


In the far background, top half leaning over the railing of Box 7, is Tim, wearing a plain costume-shop apron and a wide, excitable smile, looking at Danny. This is for him.

  


End ID]

  


2:

  


[ID: Two panels along the top. In the left panel, a top-half, limited color-palette view of Danny, outlined in blue that matches the Hero mask. His eyes peek over to the right and the Hero mask covers the bottom half of his face as he brings it up, hiding his full expression. In the right panel, Danny turns his head to glance left, now wearing the Hero mask and gesturing with his right hand toward the left as his cape fans out, making it look as though he’s fanned by accents of movement.

  


The majority of the page takes up a single long panel of what appear to be five Dannys; the rightmost is the farthest away, and with each consecutive one, he comes closer to the viewer, preparing to land on stage. Each Danny’s costume is turning a little more green, and the curve of Danny’s movement is mapped by the image of the various positions of the sword in his right hand. The fourth Danny is just about to land and abstract lines that look like wings hang in the air around his shoulders. The fifth Danny- the current Danny, who isn’t a mere after-image of movement- has a costume that has mostly turned green as the Hero mask slowly dissolves into that of the Crier, indicating that the Hero has come at the moment of a yet unknown danger. 

  


From the tip of the current Danny’s sword, green magic diffuses out into the next comic page itself. End ID]

  


3:

  


[ID: The lines between comic panels themselves begin to fall, taking the form of thick, ribbony cloth in the shape of black snakes sewn with bright green bellies. They all fall into an attack against the Crier, who stands on the right side in profile with a ribbon spelling out “LISTEN” in cursive within the white space, as well as a small exclamation mark. The Crier’s cape cascades down and provides a background to the bottom of the panel, where the Crier is turned, his back to the camera, and partially sprawled on the ground, one arm held in front of him as though to protect him. Ten snakes slowly advance along the oil-slick iridescence of the stage floor as the Crier stumbles back. 

  


In the second to last panel, the Crier tries to throw himself backwards closer to the camera, hand thrown out in front of him in a stop motion in a desperate move to stave off the snakes. The snakes loom and stream around him, drinking in his fear, and in the final panel, they all strike simultaneously, beginning to wrap around him in a writhing second skin of cloth.

End ID]

  


4:

  


[GIF ID: A perspective shot initially focusing on the vortex of snakes on the ground as it swallows the Crier whole. The camera pans up and out as the twister of writhing fabric serpents grow higher and higher, reaching new heights as the various audience boxes ringing around the stage can be seen in the background. The Crier initially emerges from the vortex of snakes, cape missing and face unseeable, before the mask changes to that of the Hero before the audience’s eyes. The entire costume changes from green to blue and the cape reappears as the Hero takes a small bow. 

  


The camera jolts at this revelation, since it implies that the Hero has managed to get all civilians out of harm’s way in the time before the audience could catch the change from Crier to Hero. End ID]

  


5:

[ID: Two panels along the top, cut on a diagonal axis. In the left, the Hero holds onto a banner of green cloth that is tied around his waist, looking down at a large, photorealistic, unopened reddish-purple flower bud which the sword spears the heart of. In the right panel, the Hero has wrapped the banner partially around his thigh and still holds on with one hand as he looks up and right to where he now holds the sword and slowly opening bud.

  


In the second to last panel and the main body of the page, the flower opens up into a photorealistic morning glory, the petals underneath facing the umbrella. By spearing the sword through in this way, Danny uses it as a makeshift umbrella, allowing the banner to drop him toward the ground. This is a perspective shot where the viewer looks up at Danny floating down from the ground, as though we were one of the snakes, many of which are winding further and further toward the Hero in an attempt to strike.

  


In the last panel, the Hero lands back on the ground, facing away from the viewer as he closes the enormous flower in hand. He looks to the left, where an enormous snake- possibly the largest out of all of them- is closing in, needle-like fangs bared. Spilling out from the sides of this panel and onto ao3 itself are more morning glories. End ID]

  


6:

  


[ID: Four panels in total. In the topmost and largest of them is a perspective shot of Danny, looking down from the position of one of the snakes rising high to strike. The Hero stands and looks up and to the upper right of the panel, dwarfed by the snake he stands on the back of as the largest snake opens its mouth wide in a threat to strike him down.

  


In the second panel, the Hero begins to run along the snake’s back, looking directly at the viewer, sword outstretched in his left hand.

  


In the third panel, he’s close enough that only his top half is shown. 

  


In the fourth panel, he’s close enough that only see the Hero’s determined face and the cape that fans out behind him. End ID]

  


7:

  


[ID: In the topmost panel, a perspective shot of the Hero’s back as he leaps forward and beheads the largest of the snakes, hair flowing with the motion. The tip of his sword glows an eerie green, lighter than the green of the snakes’ open jaws in their final moments as shreds of tattered ribbons flutter up and out. 

  


In the middle are a set of three panels. On the left, the top half of the Hero’s body, facing the viewer and looking up toward the snake seen off screen. On the right, the dying monster, opening its jaws wide as its stitched yellow eyes gleam. A rain of sewing needles falls from its unhinged jaws. In the middle, in a panel cut in two, the eye of the Hero, framed by hair, above the eye of the serpent, glowing yellow. 

  


In the second to last panel is a partial view of the Hero raising an arm to try and defend himself from the onslaught of needles. In the left part of the last panel is a far off perspective shot of the Hero’s back, shadowy against the rising walls of ominously glowing rainbow colors that surround him. In the right side, it’s shown that the Hero’s mask has shattered, leaving one of Danny’s eyes visible beneath. End ID]

  


8:

  


[ID: In the topmost panel is a top half view of Danny. He rests his right hand over the damaged portion of the mask to press the orange Inventor’s mask in its place and uses his left to take the enchanted hairpin from his hair. The shattered blue pieces of the broken portion of the mask orbit Danny’s head, stark against the rainbow background, and from the mask outward, the color of Danny’s mask and costume changes from blue to a warm coral orange. 

  


In the second panel, a blue gloved hand taps against the mask, slowly turning orange. The crumbled pieces of the mask reform back into their original shape and the mask is fixed.

  


In the bottom left panel, the Inventor holds out the hairpin as the orange color spreads to his cape, revealing bright copper wings intricately embroidered on the underside. His hair is completely down, flowing over his shoulders. In the bottom right panel, the embroidered wings fluff up and out into three-dimensional space, looking like wings slowly beginning to open up around his shoulders as he crosses his left arm over his chest and on his hip, looking down to the bottom left. End ID]

  


9: 

  


[ID: The topmost panel is a limited palette version of the top half of the Inventor, facing the audience and looking slightly to the right. He spreads his arms out as the cape disappears from the costume entirely- but not the wings, which appear to, by some kind of stage magic, be real. 

  


In the final image is Danny as the Inventor, rising with a blue silk aerial sash in his left hand. He holds his right arm slightly out as the embroidery feathers spread out around him with a full wingspan that is about at long as his own body. The palette of the scenery has been dyed in a warm orange glow and dark brown text reads, “Thanks” in soft cursive over blue ribbons that line and slowly rise from the stage. 

  


Underneath the text and close to the camera is the silhouette of one final snake, visible eye closed.

  


End.]

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy, has this been a long time coming
> 
> One Sam and Not-Sam collabed together on the dialogue, while Sam took care of the prose and Not Sam took care of the absolutely gorgeous amount of art and all the detail and style therein! We then collabed on the image IDs you see throughout the chapter.
> 
> Thank you much for reading, and we hope you enjoyed!


End file.
